13 December, 2016The
ill winds of climate change are irrevocably reshaping the Arctic,
including massive declines in sea ice and snow and a
record-late start to sea ice formation this fall. Those were the
sobering conclusions of the 2016
Arctic Report Card released
Tuesday.

The
report card is sponsored by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and co-authored by more than 50
scientists from Asia, North America and Europe. The data shows that
the Arctic is warming at double the rate of the global average
temperature. Between October 2015 and September 2016, temperatures
over Arctic land areas were 2.0 degrees Celsius above the 1981-­2010
baseline, the warmest on record going back to 1900.

The
report, released at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San
Francisco, clearly links the Arctic heatwave to a record-late start
to formation of sea ice this fall, and to record high and low
seasonal snow cover extent in the Northern Hemisphere. If the extreme
warmth recorded in the Arctic this fall persists for the next few
years, it may signal a completely new climate in the region,
scientists said.

Jeremy
Mathis, director of NOAA's Arctic Research Program, said the report
highlights the clear and pronounced global warming signal in the
Arctic and its effects cascading throughout the environment, like the
spread of parasitic diseases in Arctic animals.

"We've
seen a year in 2016 like we've never seen before ... with clear
acceleration of many global warming signals. The Arctic was
whispering change. Now it's not whispering. It's speaking, it's
shouting change, and the changes are large," said co-author
Donald Perovich, who studies Arctic climate at Dartmouth College.

Sustained
observations of the Arctic is crucial to making science-based policy
decisions, he added, a goal threatened by the inclusion of numerous
climate deniers in President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet. This week,
Trump's transition team posted a new "Energy
Independence" websitethat
repeats his previous intentions to open up vast areas for fossil fuel
development and to scrap existing climate action plans.

Arctic
ice doesn't care about politics, and what happens in the region now
is critically important to the U.S., said Rafe Pomerance, chair of
Arctic 21 and a member of the Polar
Research Board of
the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

"What
kind of Arctic do we want to have? It has to be one that maintains
the stability of the climate system," he said. "The melting
of Greenland is going to put an enormous hit on real estate values.
The fate of Greenland is the fate of Miami. It's in the U.S. national
interest to stop Greenland's ice sheet from melting. How are we going
to bring it to a halt?"

The
scientific report stands in stark contrast to the incoming
administration's apparent intention to foster more fossil fuel
development, he said.

"This
is a byproduct of the poison of denialism, a political issue that has
taken hold so deeply so that this is the kind of stuff that can be
contemplated," he said. "Evidence doesn't mean anything,
science doesn't seem to mean anything. They ought to take what's
going on in the Arctic really seriously. This is a crisis. The Arctic
is unraveling."

The
report card underscores nearly a year of unusual conditions, said
Lars Kaleschke, an Arctic researcher at the University of Hamburg who
was not among the report's authors. Extremely warm air temperatures
last January and February led to the smallest maximum winter sea ice
extent on record, equaling the record set in 2015. And the
return of extreme warmth in November led to a short period of ice
retreat at a time when it's usually growing fast.

Kaleschke
said he's become concerned by reports that the incoming U.S.
administration may cut NASA's Earth observation budget, which
includes many programs critical to understanding Arctic global
warming changes.

Kaleschke
said Trump appears to have a clear anti-science attitude that will
affect the world's ability to respond to climate change.

The
global warming signal was particularly evident in Greenland in
2016, said Marco Tedesco, a climate researcher with Columbia
University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who was involved in the
report.

"The
Greenland Ice Sheet continued to lose mass in 2016. The melt onset
was the second earliest and the melt season was 30 to 40 days longer
than average in the northeast, he said. Spring snow cover extent in
Greenland and other parts of the Arctic reached new record lows in
spring and there's new evidence that snow depth is also decreasing,
which would be a precursor to even earlier and faster melting."

Arctic
permafrost is also releasing more greenhouse gases in the winter than
plants can take up in the summer, making the Arctic a net source of
heat-trapping pollution, he dded.

Snow
cover on land helps cool the entire Northern Hemisphere climate
system, insulates soil and regulates the water cycle through the
seasons.

Highlighting
the the recent changes in the Arctic is even more important in light
of the current political context, said University of Sheffield
geographer Edward Hanna, who co-authored the report's chapter on air
surface temperatures.

Air
temperatures across the Arctic between January and March 2016 soared
past previous record highs, with some locations reporting anomalies
of more than 8 degrees Celsius. In recent decades, there have been
more frequent surges of warm air from mid-latitudes far north into
the Arctic. That lends support to the emerging hypothesis that the
Arctic meltdown is changing the path of the jet stream, possibly
leading to more sustained extreme weather events in the Northern
Hemisphere, Hanna said.

The
steady trend toward thinner, younger ice in the Arctic is also
notable, suggesting the meltdown is irreversible.

Observations
in 2016 showed a continuation of long-term Arctic warming trends
which reveals the interdependency of physical and biological Arctic
systems, contributing to a growing recognition that the Arctic is an
integral part of the globe, and increasing the need for comprehensive
communication of Arctic change to diverse user audiences.

Highlights

The
average surface
air temperature for
the year ending September 2016 is by far the highest since 1900, and
new monthly record highs were recorded for January, February,
October and November 2016.

After
only modest changes from 2013-2015, minimum
sea ice extent at
the end of summer 2016 tied with 2007 for the second lowest in the
satellite record, which started in 1979.

Spring
snow cover extent in
the North American Arctic was the lowest in the satellite record,
which started in 1967.

In
37 years of Greenland
ice sheet observations,
only one year had earlier onset of spring melting than 2016.

The
Arctic Ocean is especially prone to ocean
acidification,
due to water temperatures that are colder than those further south.
The short Arctic food chain leaves Arctic marine ecosystems
vulnerable to ocean acidification events.

Small
Arctic mammals, such as shrews,
and their parasites, serve as indicators for present and historical
environmental variability. Newly acquired parasites indicate
northward sifts of sub-Arctic species and increases in Arctic
biodiversity

"Truly
wonderful news. Maybe we won't have to leave the UK to enjoy warm
weather from spring through autumn, and we'll all save a fortune on
our heating bill"

---Rod
Large (comment)

Arctic
temperatures have hit levels last seen a ridiculously long time ago

The
word glacial should be redefined to mean 'rapidly
diminishing' rather than slow, researchers say, as the pace of change
in the Arctic begins to outstrip their ability to understand
what's happening

Parts
of the Arctic were an average of 11 degrees Celsius warmer than they
were in the late 20th century as the region experienced “extreme
record temperature anomalies”, the US National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said.

Scientists
who produced the annual Arctic Report Card warned the situation was
changing so quickly it was “outpacing our ability to understand and
explain” what they were witnessing.

They
even suggested the word glacial could no longer be used to mean a
slow pace and should be redefined to refer to something that was
“rapidly diminishing”.

The
report found the average annual air temperature over land areas was
the “highest in the observational record” at 3.5C above 1900. Sea
ice levels also fell to the lowest since satellite records began in
1979.

These
are both likely to indicate the warmest Arctic weather for tens of
thousands of years.

The
Arctic has a considerable effect on the northern hemisphere’s
weather with some experts saying the rapid warming of the region –
more than twice the global average – could produce “catastrophic”
extreme weather events for much of the planet.

As
climate science denier Donald Trump prepares to move into the White
House next month, the NOAA report said the situation was “increasing
the pressure” to communicate the importance of the “scientific
observations”.

Jeremy
Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic research programme, said: “Rarely
have we seen the Arctic show a clearer, stronger or more pronounced
signal of persistent warming and its cascading effects on the
environment than this year.

“While
the science is becoming clearer, we need to improve and extend
sustained observations of the Arctic that can inform sound decisions
on environmental health and food security as well as emerging
opportunities for commerce.”

“Arctic
temperatures continue to increase at double the rate of the global
temperature increase,” it added.

Amid
the 3.5C increase on land, there were some particularly “extreme
record warm temperature anomalies”.

“The
warmest temperature anomalies were centred on Alaska, Svalbard in the
Atlantic sector and the central Arctic,” the report said.

The
levels of ice on both land and sea have been shrinking dramatically.

“For
Arctic researchers, communicating the impacts of our discoveries has
taken on an unprecedented urgency in the face of environmental change
that – in many instances – is outpacing our ability to understand
and explain the changes we are witnessing,” the report said.

“Accustomed
to advancing our scientific disciplines at what is often called a
‘glacial’ pace, we recognise that glaciers are not so slow
anymore.

“Before
long, we may need to redefine ‘glacial’ to mean something that is
rapidly diminishing or employ a different adjective.”

Sea
ice grows and shrinks with the seasons hitting a low point in October
or November. This year the sea ice minimum was the lowest since
satellite records began in 1979.

Scientists
expect the Arctic to be effectively free of sea ice for the first
time in about 100,000 years within the next few decades, but some
have argued this could happen much sooner.

“Sea
ice extent has decreasing trends in all months and virtually all
regions, the exception being the Bering Sea during winter,” the
NOAA report said.

It
said the changes in the Arctic could lead to a number of “trillion
dollar impacts – both positive and negative”.

On
one hand, new shipping lanes are already opening up and, ironically,
less ice also means oil exploration is not as risky.

But,
on the other, the warming Arctic could have “major implications”
for our economic welfare and life as we know it, the report said.

“As
is amply demonstrated in each annual instalment of the Arctic Report
Card, the domain is collectively experiencing rapid and amplified
signatures of global climate change,” it said.

“The
Arctic system’s response to this broader forcing has become a
central research topic, given its potential as a critical throttle on
future planetary dynamics.

“Changes
are already impacting life systems, cultures and economic prosperity
and continued change is expected to bear major implications far
outside the region.”

Professor
Peter Wadhams, the head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge
University and author of the book, A Farewell to Ice, warned the loss
of snow cover, which has hit a record low, and sea ice was speeding
up global warming.

"I
calculate that between them they are causing the effective heating of
the planet to be 50 per cent higher than would be caused by the added
greenhouse gases alone – entirely due to snow and ice retreat,"
he told the Independent in an email.

Professor
Wadhams suggested that Arctic sea ice was "well and truly set on
a collapse".

And
this, he warned, could have a dramatic and sudden effect on global
temperatures.

"The
warm sea water melts the offshore permafrost, which releases methane
trapped in the sediments below," Professor Wadhams said.

"There
is potential for a catastrophic methane pulse which cause immediate
warming of up to 0.6C, according some calculations which we did in
[the journal] Nature a couple of years back."